A recently concluded Apprentice-style contest was among dozens of techniques used by spread betting companies to entice new traders in the market. However, slower growth clearly means there is an increasing focal point by the largest spread betting operators of attracting existing traders from among their peers onto their platform.

In the early days, spread betting was the most novel way for retail investors in generating income in a non-conventional way which generated awareness among traders. It wasn’t soon that education became such sought after reason for anyone who wanted to try it.

Research showed that an estimated 35,000 people stopped using spread betting in the UK in July of 2012 as compared with 32,000 people the previous year before while another 23,000 traders switched their service providers. Hence, among the established spread betting providers are now battling out for the largest share of active traders instead of trying to grow the market with new traders.

It wasn’t much of a surprise that the UK’s spread betting market only grew 9,000 between 2009 and 2012 according reports from Investment Trends. The level of growth in spread betting was very minimal and there are indeed far more switchers than new traders into the market. Switchers in this case did rather an average generation of more value for spread betting providers. Moreover, switchers are now considered veteran traders who display more proactive trading behaviour that will most likely continue in the long term.

IG group, considered the largest spread betting provider in terms of sales mentioned that investing in its service for patronising subscribers has substantially increased their revenue per client that it generates in its well established markets such as those located in Australia and the United Kingdom.

The focus of the group is centred towards active retail traders which basically means they expect fewer clients than they catered in the past but more importantly expect their remaining clients to constantly be on the average of higher value. However, there is still an implied strand that IG’s marketing activities are geared towards luring new traders.

City index, also one of the three largest spread betting providers in Britain concurs that a “dual focus” approach in acquiring more potential clients from its competitors as well as expanding its market is among its primary objective. With the stir in the spread betting market which makes so many people susceptible to switching in-between spread betting providers, this just means that the company should invest more of its technology and tools in order to keep their existing patrons interested and satisfied with their services.

These active traders in the United Kingdom are considered very confident and they know what they want for from their spread betting service providers. Therefore there is this never ending pressure for spread betting providers to provide and deliver the best service and package to hinder their existing clients to switch to another service provider.